The Associated Content Two-Step
Posted by thebarefoot on January 16, 2008
…or why this post had a question mark in the title.
Associated Content did a little back peddle today. The same “VP of Community Development” who posted the policy change about non-exclusive content no longer receiving up-front payment consideration, posted and update today which included “We will continue to evaluate content submissions for upfront payments on both an exclusive and non-exclusive basis.”
Current crisis avoided. However, hints were left in the explanation that a change is still waiting in the wings. The rush to change was blamed on ” …a serious legal issue.” I don’t have any facts or background on what this issue was, but I’m guessing it was probably complaints from other sites such as Mashable.com that triggered this.
Accusations of copyright infringement were made by some contributors to Mashable. AC founder Luke Betty responded, but the whining continued by the Mashable community ad nauseum despite AC’s assurance that better checks would be put into their system.
The real question is what changes does Associated Content have planned and how long will it take to implement them? The AC staff certainly got an eye full of forum posts on the subject. Many AC contributors had excellent alternatives to the heavy-hand “no soup for you” ruling that AC first announced. Time and tide…and stay tuned for more.
This entry was posted on January 16, 2008 at 2:33 pm and is filed under AC, Associated Content, Life, Mashable, annoying, money, payments, policy, retraction, web writing, work. Tagged: Associated Content, money, Life, web writing, work, policy, payments, Mashable, retraction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 16, 2008 at 4:17 pm
If it wasn’t for you - I would know nothing of this whole situation. After yesterday’s article here - I ran over and read the many posts at the AC Forum. I should have simply waited for this update.
Thanks!
January 16, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Call me a skeptic, but I agree that this is not resolved, something else has to be coming. If copyright infringement is the major issue, what is the difference between offering an upfront payment or just PVB? Hmm…
January 17, 2008 at 2:00 am
I hadn’t heard about the mashable situation, Barefoot. I am really curious to see what happens…I strongly believe that major changes are in store at AC for 2008. Thanks for the information.
January 17, 2008 at 11:44 am
JennH, the only thing I can think of is that it would somehow save AC from any legal responsibility, since they can rightly claim that did not review the content. Legally, I don’t know if would fly since they own the publishing platform.